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You will strain your eyes looking for a
significant difference between President Obama’s and Mitt Romney’s
positions on Iran and the prospects of an Israeli attack on the
Islamic republic. Both say “all options are on the table.” All.
That includes a full-scale military attack with even nuclear
weapons. This isn’t alarmism. Iran’s facilities are undoubtedly well
protected. No light force would be capable of taking them out.

The Romney
campaign created a stir recently when a key foreign-policy adviser,
Dan Senor, seemed to up the ante by
saying , “If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to
stop Iran from developing that [nuclear weapons] capability, the
governor would respect that decision.” The remark apparently went
too far, because Romney had to
clarify his position . “I respect the right of Israel to defend
itself,” he told CBS. But “because I’m on foreign soil, I don’t want
to be creating new foreign policy for my country or in any way to
distance myself from the foreign policy of our nation.”

This
indicates that Senor said nothing that Romney wishes to disavow.
Senor just said it in the wrong place — on foreign soil. Americans
have this foolish rule that “politics stops at the water’s edge.”
But as the classical-liberal critic of foreign intervention Felix
Morley once said, politics stops at the water’s edge only when
policy stops at the water’s edge — which, for the American empire,
it does not.

Romney might differ from Obama over where
to paint the red line that Iran may not cross. Obama says Iran must
not be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. Romney and his old
friend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say Iran must not
be allowed to possess a nuclear capability.
That would include possession of uranium and the relevant knowledge.
Iran has crossed that line already. Hence the Romney-Netanyahu
position sounds marginally more hawkish, though the real difference
may not be terribly large.

Also, Obama
has pleaded with Israel to give economic sanctions against Iran time
to work, but Netanyahu said recently he sees no hope in their
working. He appears to be itching for war. On the other hand, he
doesn’t have full support from his military and security
establishment. Prominent Israeli officials, active and retired, have
said that Iran has not decided to build a weapon and that war with
Iran would be “stupid.” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Iran would
not attack Israel even if it acquired a nuke. It may well be that
the war talk is for domestic consumption or is part of a
good-cop/bad-cop strategy with the American government.

In
some ways it doesn’t matter. In the past, games of diplomatic
chicken have ended in wars no one wanted, and it could happen again.
Obama, Romney, and Netanyahu should realize how reckless their
course is, though of course they bear no personal risk.

Iran
justifiably feels besieged. Economic sanctions against the country,
which were recently intensified by Obama and Congress, constitute
warfare under international law. Moreover, the U.S. and Israeli
governments are conducting covert operations against Iran. In other
words, the United States and Israel are already at war with the
Iranian people. Great hardship is imposed on them, because their
ability to trade for consumer goods has been disrupted and the value
of their currency undermined. It’s bizarre that every time the
Iranian government says it is prepared to defend itself from attack,
it is accused of threatening others. Who’s threatening whom?

This is
where the policy imposed by the humane Obama and supported by Romney
has brought the world.

And why?
They will tell you that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon. But
there is no evidence that Iran is developing one. Its religious
leader has forsworn such weapons, and the country’s uranium is under
the close watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency; that is
more than one can say about Israel, which has hundreds of nukes and
refuses to join Iran in signing the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty.

War with
Iran would be a disaster for everyone except the war
profiteers. Preventing it must be a priority.

*
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